I just got settled in my seat here in the Pepsi Center. State Senator Leticia Van de Putte is calling the session to order. The room is more crowded than usual this early because there's going to be a roll call vote on the nomination around 3:45MT. The California delegation actually already did their vote back at the hotel, but any delegate who hasn't will be able to cast a ballot on the floor.
I want to thank the DNC for offering this type of access for state bloggers. I know that the national bloggers are stuck in some windowless room, a step backward from 2004. And that's not right. But the state blogger access is really a mirror of politicians going to the local press instead of the national press. They are getting great blogging press in the localities, and I think it's offering a far better perspective of the convention than the traditional media, which came up with their headlines two weeks ago and is now just filling in their words. Maybe it's because I'm here, but this is the most shameful job I've ever seen from the media in terms of a disconnect between their own paranoid fantasies and reality.
As for the local and state blog strategy, it's an extension of the Dean 50-state strategy. I hope they only increase the access in the future.
